I Own the Multiverse's General Store!

The stars above the multiversal sky churned in cyclonic spirals, as if the cosmos itself recoiled from what was about to occur.

Lucius stood beneath the infinite night, his cloak fluttering, his eyes reflecting constellations that no mortal world had ever mapped. Around him, the battleground of reality trembled with residual energy from the shattered barriers he'd passed to reach this moment. The final gate had fallen. The last lock broken.

And before him, at the heart of a plane untouched by time, the Throne Eternal hovered atop a platform of black marble, suspended in the void by chains of frozen starlight. Upon that throne reclined the woman who had usurped destiny itself.

The Empress.

She was not what the stories made her. Not just a tyrant in golden regalia, not merely a betrayer. She was beautiful. Ageless. Divine. Her hair flowed in scarlet ribbons like nebulae collapsing into stars, her eyes aglow with amber flame. Around her bare feet rippled the ashes of a thousand would-be kings, drifting endlessly across the surface of her sanctum.

She regarded Lucius with something between disdain and amusement.

"So," she said, her voice like silk dragged across razors. "You've come, little heir. The boy with Walter on his leash."

Lucius said nothing at first. The weight of the moment pressed into his spine like a millstone. Behind him, his women stood ready—Alexia with her arms crossed and eyes narrowed, Luna in ethereal silence with her spell-silver hair catching nonexistent winds, Lilith burning with barely restrained jealousy and wrath.

Walter floated beside Lucius, his face set like chiseled obsidian.

"You sit on a throne that does not belong to you," Walter growled. "Your crimes echo through ten million worlds."

The Empress chuckled. "And yet here I am, old friend. Because your king was weak. Soft. And you, Walter, were too loyal to stop him from bleeding out like a child."

Lucius stepped forward. "Enough. I didn't come to listen to a goddess gloat over a stolen crown. I came to take it back."

The Throne responded to him.

It pulsed.

A low hum reverberated from the obsidian veins in the ground. The chains suspending the platform cracked with sudden bursts of cosmic flame. The air became heavy, as if saturated with molten glass.

The Empress rose.

She did not draw a weapon. Her hands glowed with ancient sigils, and a thousand phantom blades shimmered into the void behind her.

"You may have the pillars. You may have bled and bled until your soul grew teeth. But here? At the edge of forever? You fight me. And I am the multiverse."

Lucius exhaled slowly. From his back, the stolen energy of the six pillars rose like wings of stormlight. His shadow split into dozens, each echoing a piece of the men he'd been—lover, warrior, child, monster.

The battle began.

Phase One — Shattering the Halo

The Empress conjured a halo of burning rings, each orbiting her with the force of collapsing suns. She gestured with a flick of her wrist, and the rings launched outward, spiraling through space like divine guillotines.

Lucius ducked under the first, parried the second with a burst of warped space. The third grazed his ribs—instantly cauterizing flesh, bone, and soul.

Luna cast a dome of silver starlight around him, absorbing the next volley, but it cracked under pressure. Lucius rolled and retaliated, summoning the core of the Infernal Pillar, and with a sweep of his arm, launched a dragon of pure crimson flame.

The Empress caught it with her bare hand. It writhed, turned to gold, and died.

Alexia and Lilith vanished into shadows. Flanking maneuvers. The Empress ignored them.

"You still play with pawns, boy," she taunted.

But then Lilith appeared behind her, dagger poised.

The Empress twisted—and a blade of light shot from her spine, impaling Lilith clean through the chest.

"LILITH!" Lucius roared.

But the succubus laughed even as blood dribbled from her lips. "You're mine, Lucius. No matter how many gods you kill. Don't forget that."

Her body vanished—teleported by Alexia before the killing blow could follow.

Lucius channeled fury.

Phase Two — Collapse of the Veils

The battle shattered the dimensions around them. Reality tore in layers—first color, then sound, then gravity. They fought in a place where language no longer functioned, where movement required memory of movement.

The Empress danced through collapsing dimensions like a composer through symphonies.

Lucius struggled.

Only the women anchoring him kept his essence from dissolving. Luna sang a note that rebuilt a sliver of the battlefield. Alexia sacrificed blood to etch a tether into Lucius's chest. Walter invoked a forgotten True Name—restoring a foundation of real space.

The Empress frowned for the first time.

Lucius charged.

He wielded not power, but purpose. The hopes of ten thousand versions of himself, the weight of every choice, every woman who had followed him this far. His blade cut through concept, through myth, through the bones of gods.

And he struck her.

A single cut across her cheek.

The throne screamed.

Phase Three — The Throne's Judgment

They were pulled inside it.

The Throne Eternal was not a chair—it was a prison, a consciousness, a test. Both Lucius and the Empress now floated within its crystalline heart.

Visions assaulted them.

Lucius saw himself ruling. Failing. Falling to decadence. Choosing one woman and damning the others. Growing bored. Becoming cruel. Losing everything.

The Empress saw herself as she once was. Loyal. Gentle. A queen beside the old King. Betrayed not by him, but by fate itself. She had taken the throne because no one else would bear the burden.

"Do you understand now, boy?" she asked, tears of gold falling. "This throne curses whoever sits upon it."

Lucius bled from his eyes. His hands trembled.

But then—

He heard Luna's voice calling him back.

Felt Alexia's kiss burned into his memory.

Felt Lilith's pain, Walter's loyalty, his own damn spine.

"I don't care," he whispered. "I'll carry it anyway."

The Throne burst.

The Empress screamed.

Lucius Rose.

Golden light seared across the battlefield. The old throne melted into starlight, then reformed—not black, but silver. Not chains, but wings. Not ash, but soil.

The Empress lay broken, not dead.

Walter hovered near her, gaze cold. He did not finish her. He simply turned his back.

Lucius stood.

The new Throne opened.

And for the first time in ten thousand cycles, the multiverse welcomed a King.

***

The Throne Eternal had been claimed, the Empress cast down. But ruling the Multiverse was not merely about sitting atop a golden spire; it was about weaving destiny, bearing the weight of infinite realms, and answering the call of forces beyond time.

Lucius stood at the center of the Throne Chamber, the Crown of Paradox glowing faintly upon his brow. Around him, the sacred court of the multiverse slowly reassembled. Planar Lords, Elemental Regents, and Astral Watchers emerged one by one from hidden dimensions, stepping through glowing sigils that flared open like blooming flowers in empty space.

Walter was the first to bow. Not out of duty. But out of ancient, bone-deep reverence. "The multiverse does not kneel easily," the old man said. "But it remembers its rightful King."

Lucius didn't smile. His features were calm, severe, as if carved from celestial marble. He looked at the court, at the recovering citadel, and then lowered his gaze to the battlefield of memory that still raged in his thoughts.

He could feel them—his women. Not just as loyal companions or lovers, but as pillars of the empire he would now forge. Each one was a cardinal star in his constellation:

Alexia, silent as ever, now standing beside the throne with her crimson eyes scanning the court for treachery.

Lilith, arms crossed and smirking, had taken up her post as the High Enforcer of Judgment, a blade in his name.

Luna, her silver hair glistening, knelt only once—not in subservience, but as a ritual to bind her will to the new order.

And Morgana, the first he'd tamed, had claimed the seat beside his own, not as consort alone, but as Archon of the Inner Realms, the first shield against chaos.

But the multiverse was not silent.

As the echoes of the Empress's demise faded, ancient warnings stirred.

Walter cleared his throat. "Sire. The Seal of Continuum remains cracked. Her fall was not the end. Merely the unlocking of a deeper war."

Lucius turned slowly. "What comes next?"

"The Architects, my King," Walter whispered. "The ones who forged reality itself. They will sense your rise. They may not approve."

Thunder rolled across the astral skyline. A ripple passed through the chamber. Several of the gathered Lords flinched, and even Alexia shifted slightly, tension in her eyes.

"Then let them come," Lucius said.

He rose, and the entire Throne Tower shuddered. Light poured from the windows as celestial mechanisms shifted. The Throne was no longer just a seat. It was an engine, a beacon. One that would shine across the stars and summon every force of fate and fury left to challenge him.

"There will be realms that resist," Morgana said. "Entire civilizations who still followed the Empress."

"Then we liberate them," Luna said, voice like the wind of prophecy. "One world at a time."

Lilith chuckled. "Or all at once. I've always wanted to test myself against an empire."

Walter stepped forward and handed Lucius a blade wrapped in violet cloth.

"The Blade of the First Monarch," he said. "Used by the original King of All to carve laws into existence. It recognizes only one ruler."

Lucius took it. And the stars burned brighter.

A new war loomed. Not for the throne. But for the soul of reality itself.

And the true reign of King Lucius was only just beginning.